TALLADEGA, Ala. — Aric Almirola knows his way around Talladega Superspeedway and he proved it again Saturday afternoon, winning the pole for Sunday’s YellaWood 500.
It was Almirola’s sixth career pole at the 2.66-mile superspeedway and his first of the season aboard the Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.
Almirola turned a lap of 52.715 seconds at 181.656 mph as Ford drivers claimed seven of the top-10 starting positions.
“It feels good to show up to Talladega with speed in our cars,” Almirola said. “I knew coming here we were gonna have an opportunity to qualify well and this would be a great opportunity for us to win a race, so proud of everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing for continuing to fight and work their tails off to bring fast race cars to the racetrack. It would be so easy at this point in the season with where we’re at to just bring a car to the track and check the box, but that’s not who we are.
“The men and women at our organization continue to wake up every day, go into the shop figuring out how to make our race cars go fast and today is proof of that. I’m proud of the effort. We had a really good car at Daytona. We qualified well. I think we qualified second and just barely missed the pole and ran up front all night and finished third, so similar car, similar setup, all those things, so certainly expected to be fast when we got here.”
Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano qualified second with a lap of 52.719 seconds in his Team Penske Ford. Chase Briscoe was third in another Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.
Kyle Larson led the non-Ford contingent, placing his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet fourth on the grid. RFK Racing co-owner Brad Keselowski will start fifth.
NASCAR Xfinity Series regular Riley Herbst qualified sixth for Front Row Motorsports, with Austin Cindric seventh and point leader William Byron eighth.
Bubba Wallace was the only Toyota wheelman in the top 10 in ninth, while Ryan Blaney rounded out the top 10 in the third Team Penske Ford.